


pull the curtains, unravel everything

by jeien



Category: Sound Horizon (Band)
Genre: I don't know how else to tag this, M/M, PRIEST TETTERE, Temporary Amnesia, they also might be a little gay, two dead bros go to england and pretend not to be dead to kill time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 12:29:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17244227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeien/pseuds/jeien
Summary: “Tettere,” the man calls him. His voice is strong like a warrior’s tune; and yet the timbre is laced with resignation, with disillusionment, with a thousand years’ experience. This is the man the God of Death calls ‘Nechros,’ after his beloved children fated to die. But to him, the man is merely ‘Elef.’ “Come. We’re returning to the surface.”And Tettere follows.





	pull the curtains, unravel everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kiz (kizunagatari)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kizunagatari/gifts).



> LAST FIC OF THE YEAR WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! this was supposed to be for my 7 year anniversary with kiz but uhhhhhhhhh whoops i procrastinated REAL HARD ON THIS HUH. it's purely self-indulgent. also people apparently wanted to see priest tettere so here he is, albeit ni a very underwhelming manner lol

He’s not nearly as daft as some of the others are wont to believe.

Yes, he’s certainly inclined to be a little frivolous when he descends beneath the surface into the realm of the dead. Yes, he’s a little oblivious when it comes to particular events, past and current. Yes, he’s still lacking in any substantial memories of a former life. But—and this, to him, is key—he is most definitely not lacking in cunning.

He can tell that he is no native to these lands: his hair, though usually black as he roams Hades, bleeds blond as he treads the surface. He can tell that his name is not as he has been told, as he has been _called_ : the syllables are a foreign string on his tongue despite his body’s natural phonic set. (Which, by the way, is also different from those around him—meaning he’s _also_ quite an apt listener, thank you very much!) He can tell from the intonation of their whispers that he is an outsider, an invader, to their ancient ways.

A light knock of knuckles against his temple tethers him back to reality. He looks up and sees the broad-shouldered, lean-muscled frame. The wavy curtain of black hair, a mix of ember-ash and Hadean shadow, with bolts of violet indicative of Death’s favor. He sees legend brought to life.

“Tettere,” the man calls him. His voice is strong like a warrior’s tune; and yet the timbre is laced with resignation, with disillusionment, with a thousand years’ experience. This is the man the God of Death calls ‘Nechros,’ after his beloved children fated to die. But to him, the man is merely ‘Elef.’ “Come. We’re returning to the surface.”

And Tettere follows.

 

* * *

 

“Lord Thanatos kept you for a while,” Tettere says as they make their way through the Gates. He waves farewell out of courtesy to scarlet-robed Lafrenze, who curtly nods her head with lips pressed into a tight line. It always seems like she never liked him. “Is it another assignment?”

Life begins to seep back into their hair as they step foot into the mortal realm. Tettere runs his fingers beneath the threads of spun gold that crown his head like the dawn light. He chances a glance at his companion and watches the black ribbon of a starless night sky give way to a veil of pearl white. The bolts of color remain, though the violet has taken on a bit of a redder hue: a sunset magenta to pair with his own sunrise strands.

“Just a word of caution,” Elef says, “though it’s nothing I haven’t been thinking of already.”

“How ominous!”

“It really isn’t. I was merely considering forging documentation for us. It’s starting to become a necessity in this day and age.”

Tettere hums. It’s a sensible thought. “Looks like you’ll have to dye your hair again, too. A shame that white isn’t a very convincing color for a young man. Well, unless there’s abnormalities. They don’t engage in witch hunts or inquisitions based on physical appearance now, do they?”

“In this era? Not particularly, at least when it concerns the public sphere.” Elef takes to inspecting his signature braid as he weighs his options. He knows that Elef will choose brown this time. Blond doesn’t quite sit right on his disposition and the one instance he chose a shade of red had been a disaster. “Though they still take it into account when judging character—beauty, that is. I’m sure you’ll pass as a model citizen with your looks.”

“You say that as if I’m not already a model citizen!” Tettere exclaims with a huff, completing the gesture with a hand placed over his still heart. And, well, perhaps he hadn’t been such a person whatever former life he led. He doesn’t know. But he’s been nothing but upstanding during his ventures with Elef, so Tettere believes that he should at least be given some credit.

For a rare moment, the corners of Elef’s lips pull upwards in a lax half-smile. His companion hums the same note Tettere had only measures before and begins to walk off without another word.

Perhaps he’ll never know for sure. Tettere finds himself content nonetheless.

 

* * *

 

They exchange to the proper currency from whatever one they had last, purchase appropriate clothes, begin to work out the finer details of their next elaborate lie. Neither of them had wealth or title, but it’s undeniable that they’re both well-versed in a variety of educated subjects from their travels. A few centuries have that kind of effect. They decide to start with the most basic of basics: their names.

“Alexandros?” Tettere proposes for himself while they sit under the cloud-clothed sun. Elef looks at him with the same expression when he catches a soul trying to escape Hades. “Alright, fine. How about Paris?”

“Clearly, you’re terrible at this,” Elef says, unimpressed lines still neatly molded in his face. Okay, Tettere will admit that perhaps he was a little too ambitious when he chose those two. He can’t be faulted for wanting to have a flair of heroism. “Try again.”

“Xerxes?”

“You’re joking. Can’t you pick something from the past hundred years that’d be considered normal for a blond-haired, blue-eyed man?”  

“Charlemagne.”

“Now you’re just being cheeky.”

“I’d like to see _you_ think of something, then!”

His companion averts his eyes, twirling now-walnut-brown hair between his fingers. He kept the length of it the same, though it’s beginning to fall out of fashion for men to have long hair. “Albrecht was going to be my suggestion, but that might be a little too plain for your tastes—”

“Albrecht is fine,” Tettere says suddenly. The interruption seems to startle Elef, too. He isn’t sure why the words spilled from his mouth. But he knows that, somehow, the name sits right on his tongue. Somehow, it sounds like a name he would have. “It means ‘noble’ and ‘bright,’ after all. And it’s Germanic in nature, so it should be fine for someone who looks like me, no?”

Tettere turns his head to look at Elef and is met with an azalea-colored stare: piercing, paralyzing. “How do you know all that?”

How _does_ he know that?

He can’t form an answer. As he’s ready to say _I’m not sure_ , Elef rips his gaze away with a shake of his head. “Nevermind. It’s not important. Anyway, Albrecht. Should I come up with your surname as well, or can I trust you to do that much?”

A moment of clarity appears, shining through the haze, as he blurts out, “Stoltz?”

“Stoltz,” Elef repeats. Very briefly, like a capricious breeze or trick of the light, he sees hesitance. It’s gone in the next blink. “Well, it’s German. I have no qualms.”  

 _You do_ , Tettere thinks to himself. There’s so much he isn’t aware of. So much that Elef is hiding. However, it isn’t the time for that particular conversation. “What about you? What’ll your name be?”

“I’ll keep using Elef.”

“What—why do _you_ get to keep your name?!”

In an attempt to make things ‘fair,’ Elef decides to use it as part of a surname. Tettere has no further protests.  

 

* * *

 

They spend a good while in England, mostly to get away from the mainland for once. The world’s center starts to shift towards that tiny island nestled within the Atlantic as the waves of influence begin to ripple out from the country like the first drop of rain against a pond. The two of them are caught up in the whirlwind of change that’s unfolding before them.

Albrecht Stoltz finds it exciting. Orion Eleftheriou finds it the same as it’s always been.

 

* * *

 

He’s in the confessional when something curious happens.

It’s a voice that sits low on the throat as it clings onto its fading youth, wrapping words with the same sort of accent he had taken on for this new life. It tells him, “I had hoped it was you, Father Stoltz.”

Tettere isn’t afraid of danger. There had never been any need to. He shares the same kind of immortality Elef has: one that will not let them die unless the body is, as Elef had put it, completely obliterated. (There’s the inkling of a feeling, however, that those words have as much withheld information as the rest of what Elef has explained to him.) He’s not worried about any potential threat.

Instead, he glances at the divider curiously. “And why is that?”

“This isn’t a confession per se,” the voice says. “You see, I had been told that someone in my family from generations ago had been commissioned to paint the portrait of a young prince who bears such a striking resemblance to you that it had shocked me terribly when you first began to serve in the ministry.”

Huh.

“There are plenty of men who look like me,” says Father Stoltz. Blond-haired and blue-eyed come as a typical set for men in this part of the world.

The voice from the other side clears his throat. “No, Father, I truly mean it when I say that the portrait could very well depict you in noble regalia. Not only do your features match, but the aura and posture are unmistakably yours. If you wish, you can come see it for yourself.”

 _In this world, we are humans_. _Tread as a mortal man would_.   

And yet, not everyone treaded with caution. It’s with that in mind that he finds himself crossing the threshold into the man’s apartment: a manageable, dusky kind of place suited for a bachelor with a suspiciously veiled painting leaning precariously against the far wall. The man walks to the other side of the room and pulls off the cloth, revealing the portrait.

It’s half-finished. Blobs of color merely block in vague shapes of curtains and furniture and other knick-knacks Tettere assumes had been placed as decoration. The subject, however, is mostly complete. Even if the shins and feet remained to be white silhouettes of paint, the resemblance is as uncanny as the man had said: the same shade of golden-blond adorning his head, the same sapphire-blue irises set into his eyes, the same formal smile that just barely curls upwards like a spider lily.

His eyes gaze upon the painting as he draws nearer, catching sight of the clothes. It’s a little gaudy compared to what he’s used to from his travels with Elef—though he really shouldn’t be too surprised considering this person had been a prince—but there’s something about that red and blue capelet…

“My ancestor never got a chance to finish it,” the man says, breaking Tettere out of his reverie. “Apparently, he had taken it back to his studio to reinforce the canvas, but the castle was already in flames by the time he had returned to paint the rest.”

“Do you know his name?”

A contemplative rumble bubbles from the man’s throat. “I’ve heard from my nan that he was the prince of a small territory in the mainland and it was apparently taken over by another kingdom shortly after the castle’s fall. No records were left behind, so the name always seems to escape me. Ad… Ar…” 

Tettere reaches out to touch the canvas, fingers smoothing over dried paint as he traces the man’s features. His stare meets the oil one. He feels some message, some revelation, trying to push through.

“Ah!” the man shouts with a clap of his hands. “Yes, yes, I remember now! It’s similar to yours, sir. Prince Albrecht Terrell von der Stolzenberg is the name.”

“Albrecht Terrell von der Stolzenberg,” Tettere whispers, more to himself than anything. It’s a lengthy one, as nobility are inclined to give to their kin. It’s a name that sits on his tongue with the heaviness of a dissolving eucharist. It’s—

_“I won’t let it end like this, Your Highness.”_

—What?

His ears are ringing from the sudden thought. Tettere tears his gaze away from the painting and faces the man fully. “No records left, correct?”

The man shook his head. “None. I’ve only got my nan’s stories from what her grandmother told her as she was growing up. Merely bedtime tales.”

There are tales that are works of fiction; but that doesn’t mean that everything is made up.

“Can you tell me all of it?”

The story goes thusly:

The prince was the only son to a small kingdom. He was strange. He oft wandered into the forests, seeking his ideal bride. He was obsessed with death.

The grandmother said that the prince brought back a blue princess. The grandmother’s grandmother said the prince brought back a red princess. They always disagreed on this detail. Whether blue or red, however, the prince was said to have brought back one other: a vagabond from a foreign land with hair like marble with stripes of twilight sky.

The people revolted. The castle burned to ashes. How and why remains a mystery.

 

* * *

 

As he lays in the parsonage, Tettere sees the portrait beneath closed eyelids. The name _Prince Albrecht Terrell von der Stolzenberg_ continues to weave its web in his mind, waiting for him to be caught in spider silk. It sits on his tongue like a crown meant for him to adorn.

He dreams that night of castle halls. He dreams of forests and of otherworldly conductors and of vengeance.

Most importantly, he dreams of Elef: same as he has always been since the very beginning, with the corners of his lips pulling upwards in a lax half-smile as he softly calls, “Your Highness.”

 

* * *

 

“Orion.”

Dying sunrays crowned Elef’s head like an ancient saint. The sea glitters behind him, as he steps away from the docks. Some of the other stevedores call out to him without missing the rhythms of unloading cargo. The usual banter of _Blimey, Orion, another lecture from Father Stolz?_ or _Must be a man of many vices, huh!_ or some other. It makes the time go faster and the work lighter. Elef merely waves without so much as looking back. Tettere begins to walk towards the road, knowing Elef will follow.

“Can’t say I’m surprised to see you with how much you insist on these private sermons,” Elef says as he catches up, their steps slowly falling into place with one another.

To this, Tettere gives a little birdsong of a laugh. “There will be no sermon tonight, I assure you.”

“ _Tonight_ , you say.”

“Naturally, other nights are held to different standards.”

“Of course they would be.”

As they walk their routine path towards Elef’s lodgings, their tongues speak in hidden messages, double meanings. There are no red-and-black masks to mark them as foreign entities in the roles of mortal beings, but they play their parts expertly nonetheless: Father Stolz the concerned minister who had crossed paths with Orion the worldly laborer on the ship to England. Everyone else is none the wiser of something out of place.

Until yesterday, Tettere had also been like that.

They arrive at their destination soon enough. Elef’s lodgings are but a mere second-floor room nestled in a dilapidated building by the East End. His neighbors are either absent gamblers or professional black-out drunkards, so they never had much of a problem when it comes to exchanging sensitive information. They both take to the two chairs tucked beneath a small table: seats meant solely for them in these evenings.

Elef doesn’t bother to light the lamp. Tettere doesn’t bother to mince his words.

“You have quite the nerve, deceiving your prince like this.”

Under the curtain of moonlight, things don’t seem too different from how they had been back then, back when he was alive. It had still been him and Elef, under the cover of darkness as Tettere would one-sidedly chat the hours away. The only difference now is that he can witness the novelty of Elef actually being surprised.

“You remember.” The words hold no accusation, no weight. As soft as a secret in the confessional, as transient as their footprints on the shore. They leave Elef’s lips the same way as the _You’re awake_ Tettere received when first gaining consciousness in Hades.

Tettere is still waking up. “Not everything, mind. I just remember some important points. I remember you.”

Elef had been a stranger—a traveler who had turned up within the borders of his kingdom out of nowhere, bearing foreign clothes and a striking countenance of pearl and red tourmaline. An omen that had walked among them, though never revealing whether his presence was a force of luck or misfortune. He had helped the poorer villages and secured border perimeters, but the church bells had continually sung their dirges for a dying populace. Tettere had found it interesting and had the man brought to his castle, made him a companion to stave away the days of fanciful ennui.

Elef had been as knowledgeable as he is now. He had been just as frank, speaking with a politeness that never compromised his true thoughts. Most of all—and this, to him, had been key—he had understood Tettere, in all his strange quirks and fondness for the dead. For someone who had spent the better part of their waking life being pampered on a palatial pedestal, it had been refreshing. Intoxicating.

He had loved Elef.

“I’d like to know how I came to die,” Tettere requests. After all, he must be dead if he had woken in Hades and had traveled decades with the man in front of him with no signs of age. “What happened after I had taken you in?”

Elef contemplates and tells the story thusly:

Death is no stranger to him, as it had always accompanied him in life until he ceased to be mortal. It had not stopped him from playing pretend as he treaded the ground as humans do. He had continued to breathe and work and fight and walk. He had continued to help.

Death is a stranger to all others and humans rightfully try to avoid it. He had been a herald for his master on several battlefields during ages long gone. People had naturally been afraid. But he had still continued to help.

Death is what binds him to a prince, who yearned for his ideal bride. Briefly, he forgets that death is something to be feared, for he sees that the prince does not fear it. The prince accepts death in the manner that humans accept life. The prince had accepted him.

Death is what had caused the bells of the prince’s kingdom to ring morning and evening. It had become a part of the people’s maddening everyday and they then remember of the omen that had appeared within their borders months before garbed in pearl and red tourmaline.

Death is what their prince had been obsessed with. It had been what caused him to fall into inaction, what had been causing their loved ones to wilt like winter flowers, what had given rise to the kingdom’s decay.

Death is no stranger to him—and so when he had seen the black band around the prince’s neck, he knew the time had come. The people had stormed the castle to liberate themselves from the scourge that walked among them. The prince had sat upon his father’s throne in wait.

Death was meant to be the prince’s destiny.

And yet.

“And yet?”

Moonlight pools around the lines of Elef’s face, softening the strong edges into something more vulnerable. Something very much human-like.

“And yet I couldn’t accept it.”

Destiny is something he had defied in a bygone era. It had been what took away the ones he loved, what caused him to commit a crime only recorded upon the pages of a forgotten poem that had been buried by the hands of the Mother Herself. It had been the reason why Elef plucked the prince from his throne and whisked him away into the fleeting darkness bound for Hades as the castle burned behind them.

“Lord Thanatos must have been angry.”

“He was certainly upset, but not quite to the point of anger. I received quite the stern lecture, is all. Other than that, you simply became my responsibility. On your suggestion, we had you drink water from the River Lethe to forget about your past life.”

 “Oh?”

“You told me you wanted to start clean.” He watches Elef turn his head away in a manner that almost makes him think that he’s flustered. He finds it endearing. “You… said you wanted to fill your memories with nothing but me.”

Tettere smiles. “That does sound like something I’d say.”

“Does it?”

“Well, I’d certainly say it now.”

Darkness shifts around them as the night forges on. With the shadows slowly veiling their heads, coating them black as night even if just for a few minutes, it’s almost as if they discarded their roles of Orion and Father Stoltz—as if they’re simply two creatures from Hades who travel the world together named Elef and Tettere.

 

* * *

 

On their way out of the city in the dead of night, Tettere stops by the apartment that held his portrait and sets it aflame. They make for Hades without looking back.

 

* * *

 

“Do you love me, Elef?”

They continue to descend. Brown hair burns into an ink black, while sunlight locks sink into the color of death.

“Enough to keep you with me for eternity,” Elef replies, “but not enough to let you name yourself Alexandros.”  

Tettere is not as daft as some of the others are wont to believe. Yes, he’s certainly inclined to be a little frivolous when he descends beneath the surface into the realm of the dead. Yes, he’s a little oblivious when it comes to particular events, past and current. Yes, he’s still lacking the finer details of his former life as a prince.

But even he knows that those words mean _I love you_.

**Author's Note:**

> come scream with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/jeienb/)


End file.
